In today’s Journal
* Scheduling
* Speaking of Challenges
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Scheduling
Recently I talked about daily word count averages and how much they matter. This is one more way they matter. I call it scheduling.
Life throws all of us little or big curves now and then, and they seem almost always to interrupt our writing time.
For the really big curves, there isn’t much you can do. You just have to step back for a moment (or a day or a month) and then start writing again when the smoke has cleared.
But the little curves are manageable.
Today I have a doc appointment at 1 p.m. in Sierra Vista (about an hour away).
Most of the time my day goes like this:
I check the internet first, then get the Journal posted, then write a little fiction. But more and more often, I write most of my fiction in the last three or four hours of my day, so from noon or 1 p.m. to 3 or 4 p.m.
But yesterday I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that today because of the appointment. I knew my afternoon writing time wouldn’t be available to me.
And since I usually write less in the morning than in the afternoon, I hope I could write more than usual this morning, but I never count on the future turning out the way I want it to. You never know when another curve will come zinging in.
I also know my WPD average on Wednesday was only 3218 words per day. (Check it today.)
So to be sure my average remains above 3000 wpd, I spent a little more time writing yesterday. I not only stayed in the chair a little longer, but I turned off my email notifications and checked emails only a few times during the day.
It worked wonderfully. I will be doing that from now on. I’ll respond to your emails as soon as I see them.
Yesterday, instead of writing awhile then slipping over to my business computer when an email came in, I concentrated on my writing. In other words, I concentrated on putting words ‘in the bank’.
When the smoke cleared, I’d added 5593 words to the novel in about 6 hour of writing.
So there y’go. If you keep one eye on your WPD average too, you can maintain or improve your that average.
Why am I mentioning this now?
Remember, I’ll put up another challenge or two beginning on November first. Those of you who are interested should be practicing right now on three things:
- getting to (or back to) the computer every chance you get,
- putting as many new publishable words of fiction on the page as possible before you leave for the day, and
- keeping an eye on your words per day average.
If you do that and if you go into November with that habit established, you should be able to breeze right through any challenge I throw at you. Even if life throws you a little curve or two.
If you aren’t practicing doing those things already, and if writing fiction is important to you and you want to grow in the craft, you can still start practicing them. Putting new words on the page will teach you a great deal more about writing fiction than most of the nonfiction books out there will.
Of course I’ll do my best to come up with some adequate weekly prizes plus a bonus for anyone who reaches their monthly total in the challenge.
Speaking of Challenges
This reminder is a little early, but you who are involved in the Bradbury Challenge, remember to get your story titles, word count, and genre in to me by Sunday midnight (grace period until the Journal goes live on Monday morning).
And you who are not in the ongoing Bradbury Challenge yet, check any Monday post for the “rules,” then jump in. It costs nothing, and doing so can help jumpstart your writing.
The Bradbury Challenge is just a way to give you a place to report and a way to help you hold your own feet to the fire.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Patreon Subscription Models for Authors
Episode 973: Hypocritical Vince!
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 700
Writing of Blackwell Ops 29: John Quick
Day 1…… 1781 words. To date…… 1781
Day 2…… 3792 words. To date……. 5573
Day 3…… 3087 words. To date……. 8660
Day 4…… 3545 words. To date……. 12205
Day 5…… 2667 words. To date……. 14872
Day 6…… 1665 words. To date……. 16537
Day 7…… 3073 words. To date……. 19610
Day 8…… 5593 words. To date……. 25203
Fiction for October……………………. 53867
Fiction for 2024……………………….. 795375
Nonfiction for October……………….. 17620
Nonfiction for 2024……………………. 321210
2024 consumable words……………… 940624
Average Fiction WPD (October)……… 3367
2024 Novels to Date……………………….. 14
2024 Novellas to Date……………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date………………… 18
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..……. 96
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………. 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………..… 255
Short story collections…………………….….. 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
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